LONDON -- Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has refused to criticise Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger for their behaviour at the Community Shield on Sunday.
The pair avoided shaking hands after Arsenal's 1-0 victory over Chelsea at Wembley and were critical of each other afterwards.
Mourinho and Wenger have engaged in public spats since the former's arrival in England in 2004, and Scudamore said there was no need for the pair to feign affection for one another.
"Shake hands if you mean it, shake hands if you want to shake hands, and if there is some enmity between you, that is for individuals and for them to decide, not me," Scudamore said at Wednesday's Premier League launch event in London.
"It is rivalry, it is competitiveness and people understand it goes back a long way, and I don't want to go any further."
He added: "I don't think it is good or bad. What would be worse is a meaningless handshake where it meant nothing, so at the end of the day it is an individual issue between two individuals.
"I would much rather concentrate on the camaraderie between managers, between clubs. It is remarkable how much camaraderie there is and it is far more positive than people would ever imagine."
Scudamore said he did not believe that managers should have to shake their opposite number's hand, as players are required to do ahead of each Premier League match.
"At the end of a sporting contest, whether you have won or lost, it should not be beyond anybody to shake hands," he said. "That is why we have a lineup at the beginning and the players shake hands and there is an element of respect about that, but you are not going to get me drawn and intervening in terms of what goes on between two managers."
This week, the Premier League announced its new code of conduct, which will see touchline staff who abuse officials first given a verbal warning before being sent to the stand in the event of a repeat offence.
"People know what goes on on the field," he said. "If somebody does something the referee doesn't like, normally it is a quiet word. [If] suddenly it is more aggravating than that, then you can see a more demonstrable word, then you see a yellow and then sometimes occasionally you see a red.
"It is a bit more unclear as to what goes on in that technical area, so all the FA and the League Managers' Association have agreed is to have a bit more clarity.
"So, the managers were told that graduated system is in place, and it is quite simply a quiet word from the fourth official, a slightly more formal word and if it gets out of hand the referee will come over to have a more demonstrable word.
"If that doesn't sort it, then the ultimate sanction is removal to the stands and quite frankly that is all that has been clarified. It is nothing bigger than that and wasn't in response to a particular incident, it was about bringing clarity to the technical area that perhaps didn't exist before."
Mourinho has welcomed the FA's new code of conduct, pointedly referring to the moment he was pushed in the chest by Wenger at Stamford Bridge last October.
"I am very happy because last season I had fantastic behaviour on the touchline. I was never sent to the stands, I was never punished for my behaviour," Mourinho told talkSPORT.
"I always had good relations with the fourth official I had a new experience in my career, which is always welcome, because I was pushed in the technical area by another manager and it was a good experience for me to keep my emotional control."
He also said he would shake Wenger's hand in future. He said: "As a manager in a football stadium, I never refuse a handshake with a rival. By respect of my club and by respect of football I would never refuse a handshake with a football manager in a football stadium."
Information from the Press Association was used in this report.